Chapter 5. Networking Operators overview

The Cluster Network Operator (CNO) deploys and manages the cluster network components in an OpenShift Container Platform cluster. This includes deployment of the Container Network Interface (CNI) network plugin selected for the cluster during installation. For more information, see Cluster Network Operator in OpenShift Container Platform.

The DNS Operator deploys and manages CoreDNS to provide a name resolution service to pods. This enables DNS-based Kubernetes Service discovery in OpenShift Container Platform. For more information, see DNS Operator in OpenShift Container Platform.

When you create your OpenShift Container Platform cluster, pods and services running on the cluster are each allocated IP addresses. The IP addresses are accessible to other pods and services running nearby but are not accessible to external clients. The Ingress Operator implements the Ingress Controller API and is responsible for enabling external access to OpenShift Container Platform cluster services. For more information, see Ingress Operator in OpenShift Container Platform.

The External DNS Operator deploys and manages ExternalDNS to provide the name resolution for services and routes from the external DNS provider to OpenShift Container Platform. For more information, see Understanding the External DNS Operator.

The Ingress Node Firewall Operator uses an extended Berkley Packet Filter (eBPF) and eXpress Data Path (XDP) plugin to process node firewall rules, update statistics and generate events for dropped traffic. The operator manages ingress node firewall resources, verifies firewall configuration, does not allow incorrectly configured rules that can prevent cluster access, and loads ingress node firewall XDP programs to the selected interfaces in the rule’s object(s). For more information, see Understanding the Ingress Node Firewall Operator

The Network Observability Operator is an optional Operator that allows cluster administrators to observe the network traffic for OpenShift Container Platform clusters. The Network Observability Operator uses the eBPF technology to create network flows. The network flows are then enriched with OpenShift Container Platform information and stored in Loki. You can view and analyze the stored network flows information in the OpenShift Container Platform console for further insight and troubleshooting. For more information, see About Network Observability Operator.